ESL One Belo Horizonte powered by Intel celebrated its debut of the flagship event series ESL One at the sold out Mineirinho Arena in Brazil on June 15-17, 2018. Eight of the world’s best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) teams battled over the coveted title and a lion’s share of the $US200,000 prize pool in front of a fully packed stadium.

After some competitive matchups, the five day long competition concluded on Sunday with the Grand Finale as two of the top CS:GO teams to date, FaZe Clan and mousesports, provided the passionate Brazilian crowd with a memorable match. At the end, it was the European Powerhouse FaZe Clan who was able to beat mousesports 3:2 and secured another win counting towards the Intel® Grand Slam series. This marks the third Grand Slam win after FaZe Clan’s success at ESL One New York in September 2017 and Intel Extreme Masters Sydney in May 2018, bringing them one step closer to the $US1,000,000 bonus prize and the chance to seal the deal by winning ESL One Cologne 2018.

The sold out Mineirinho Arena, which was partly granted by the Secretary of State for Sports of Minas Gerais in order to show the state’s support and foster the growth of the local esports scene, welcomed 11,500 fans on each of the three main event days. ESL One Belo Horizonte clocked more than 43 million sessions with the peak concurrent viewership reaching over 583,000 viewers. This marks an impressive 166% increase in the total number of sessions and a 53% growth in peak concurrent viewership compared to the CS:GO Pro League Season Four Finals that took place in Sao Paulo in 2016. Overall, more than 7,5 million hours of content were consumed by the online audience.

“The Brazilian crowd surely lived up to the expectations as the Mineirinho Arena started shaking when the local heros SK Gaming entered the big stage,” said Ulrich Schulze, Senior Vice President of Product at ESL. “South America and especially Brazil has and will be an important part of the esports industry, and we are very proud to actively support the growth of the local community.”

"The Brazilian fans were great, which is sure to be marked in the history of esports. I believe the result of everything we accomplished wit ESL One Belo Horizonte is very positive! We are very proud to be able to provide this unique experience to our community and we hope to repeat all that success very soon", said Leo De Biase, CEO of ESL Brazil.

Up next in the ESL One event series for CS:GO is ESL One Cologne 2018, which is set to take place in the Cathedral of competitive Counter-Strike, at the LANXESS Arena in Cologne, Germany on July 6-8. Followed by ESL One New York 2018, ESL’s North American flagship event and the biggest esports tournament on the East Coast, which will be held at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on September 29-30.